TicinoVintner
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2012
- Messages
- 106
- Reaction score
- 9
Total newb here. I am an American living in Switzerland (Swiss wife) and my brother in law has a small vineyard and rustico in Ticino which is basically Northern Italy flying a Swiss flag. Anyways this property has been neglected for years and is slowly being renovated. As he concentrates on the rustico I am in charge of the vines. The vineyard has only received the most basic care just to keep it alive and not much else. What we think we know is that it has Merlot which makes up 90% of Ticino wine and some Americano grapes which I have found very little information about except that they were imported in the early 1900's when Europes vineyards were devastated by disease. We don't know which vines are which and we have no clue as to what the white vines are. And to top it all off we live in Zurich about 2.5 hours away so we can only go there every few weekends. My biggest concern is keeping the vineyard from turning into a jungle as nature is trying to reclaim every square inch, mostly with a tree that has nothing but thorns and is almost impossible to kill unless you remove the main roots. I will post pictures next time we go in a few weeks when we plant a few new merlot vines to replace the dead ones. I look forward to learning how to grow grapes and make wine and am sure it will turn from hobby to passion in no time. For now I have ordered the book From Vine to Wine and was lurking here for the last month trying to learn as much as possible. Thanks for having me and I will try not to annoy you folks with too many questions. lol
